"Anger...can't solve any problems." Xia Yibing said coldly, "Have you forgotten what she said at that time, Ethan? We must remain calm and restrained enough to have a chance of saving her."
"Or do you have so little confidence in yourself that you feel that without Aisun Hitzfeld you will not be able to solve cases, and you will be a useless person and have no way to deal with the file materials?"
"Of course not!" Ethan snorted and turned away quickly, "I just don't trust the thing itself."
He was referring to the level nine file.
Yes.
The others also sighed inwardly.
Just as Ethan said now, and as Xia Yibing suspected before...if that file really contained a lot of important information, the Security Bureau should not have been so passive from the beginning.
Fair Lawrence should have been arrested and controlled as a child when he first showed signs of "mechanical phobia". It is normal that information that failed to allow the Security Agency to do so is not trusted.
Xia Yibing was about to say something when she suddenly heard a sound of knocking on the window.
She turned her head and saw a gray shadow fluttering outside the window. She immediately stood up, opened the window, and let in a gray hunting falcon.
The falcon was about half the size of a forearm. After flying in, it naturally landed on the woman's shoulder. Its furry head moved closer and rubbed against her face a few times.
Xia Yibing stretched out her left hand and let the bird jump onto her left arm. With her right hand, she removed a small paper tube from its feet and pulled out a roll of letter paper from it.
"Is this the messenger?" Pippen looked curiously and reached out to touch the falcon. "When did they start using the grey-headed falcon to deliver information..."
"twitter--"
The falcon quickly turned around, opened its sharp, barbed beak, glared at Pippen and chirped angrily.
"This stupid bird!"
Pippen was startled and quickly retracted his hand, cursing in anger.
"Why are you fuming with a bird..." Hem just felt ashamed, "Please don't disturb the captain, she is interpreting our last hope."
It is indeed the last hope.
Glancing at Xia Yibing who was reading the letter carefully, Grimm nodded slightly while sitting in his chair.
If even this information cannot help them find the parasite, they can only... observe and search slowly in the slowest and stupidest way before dawn.
He personally had no confidence in the latter option, because the people in the straw house had been checked individually (Hitzfeld was checked separately by Xia Yibing) to ensure that there was nothing abnormal on the surface of their bodies after they took off their clothes.
The basis for judging whether they are parasites is too subjective.
He is not optimistic.
Maybe it would turn out to be the worst case scenario, and everyone including Esuen Hitzfeld would have to be dealt with before dawn.
Xia Yibing has already unfolded the letter.
[Death Tree]
[Sealing level: nine]
These two lines of words are at the beginning.
[The Death God Tree is a strange evil species that has not been thoroughly explored. So far, there is no evidence that it is an evil species rather than a natural life. The basis for this judgment is that the "silver bullet" has no effect on it. It seems that its roots are not rooted in the gray fog of the dream world, but are completely nourished by things in reality.]
Is this... the culprit behind the legend of the Dead Woodland?
Xia Yibing's eyelids twitched.
Just one tree can give rise to the concept of a forest.
This is enough to show how dangerous and terrible it is.
[The Death Tree's eruption cycle is 40 years.]
She continued reading.
[After the cycle is complete, the Death Tree will drain everything around it as nutrients for maturity. Then it will disintegrate into ash, as if nature existed for destruction.]
[Its collapse does not mean the end of reincarnation. After investigation, it is confirmed that it will randomly select parasitic objects among the Sara people, and the initial characteristics it displays are different each time.]
[The parasites usually have 2-3 people. In extreme cases, it can reach 4 people. These people are enough to breed the seeds of destruction of the Death God Tree.]
[Does the Seed of Destruction have parasitic abilities?]
[Temporarily in doubt.]
[Preliminary estimates show that the possibility is extremely high, and there is no shortage of terrible situations where even killing the Seed of Destruction cannot prevent the Death Tree from descending.]
[However, the number of secondary parasites should not be too high.]
[Preliminary estimates are that the two cores of the human body should be targeted, considering that the Seed of Destruction will retain a large number of human forms: the brain and the heart.]
The words stop here.
Xia Yibing couldn't wait to turn to the other side.
No more.
That's it?
Her eyes widened.
A ninth-level file... so short?
How much information is there in total? And many of them actually start with “preliminary estimate”!
It's so unreliable... I really shouldn't have put my hopes on this thing!
What to do next.
She glanced up at the crowd and found that everyone was staring at her.
His gaze turned to the letter again.
The brain and the heart...
Wait, it says above that its eruption cycle is 40 years.
Forty years ago, wasn’t it a period of solar eclipse when the evildoers were causing trouble everywhere?
Why don't I remember any record mentioning the Death Tree?
Recalling carefully, Xia Yibing suddenly remembered.
The Death Tree is not mentioned.
But there is indeed one place where the disaster was so severe that the Security Bureau and the religious sect were forced to invest most of their forces there.
Northern Parish, Amelion.
She glanced at Ethan.
That's... where Ethan's father died.
Chapter 32 Mask
The first golem disaster in Blackwood occurred in 1943.
Xia Yibing had read Lilith Dawson's records. Even though she had no idea about the internal situation of Shadow Lion at that time, just by looking at this record she could understand why only she and Alfred went to Blackwood for support.
Because there were greater threats in other places in Sara, more people in the Shadow Lions, more people in the cult - together they formed a huge and terrifying force, and they all went to those places to clear out and suppress them.
There were only two of these places she could confirm. The first was the Worm Plains in the northwest of Sara, and the second was Amilun in the northern parish.
The name Amiloon has always given her a very contradictory impression.
In some accounts, the name is used as a general term for the entire northern diocese, but in other, older accounts, the name seems to refer to a specific place.
Xia Yibing was not sure if this was her illusion, because descriptions such as "We finally arrived in Amelon" and "A murder occurred in Amelon" could be regarded as describing the entire North if one forced their understanding.
It was just a little strange to understand it this way. It was like when she herself made a report on Nanxinze, she did not use the name "Nanxinze" but directly called it the Southern Diocese.
It is possible, but it is not very rigorous.
She had this suspicion a long time ago, but she never had the chance to really confirm whether it was really a contradiction.
It was not until this moment, when she read about the "Dead Silence Woodland" and the "Tree of Death", a mysterious evil that she had never heard of before and was no less serious than the Worm Plains, that she realized that her premonition might be correct.
Amelien was probably indeed a city before 1943.
Even if it is not a city, it should refer to the most prosperous area along the northern coast. Only in this way can the wording of the text be explained smoothly and can it be recognized by her from a professional perspective.
As for why the naming rules changed after 1943.
Well... Since there is no such thing as a "prosperous northern coastal area" in Xia Yibing's memory - she and Hitzfeld once stopped in Amiren on the way to the Crystal Sea, and confirmed that there were only ordinary and barren northern cities there - then according to her understanding after combining all the information: it may be because a terrible disaster broke out in this place that once existed, and this disaster swept the entire northern coastal area and wiped out the once prosperous civilization.
Could this disaster be the Tree of Death?
She stared at the paper in her hand, frowning.
Lilith... Madam told me at the time that even if we killed her it would only delay the destruction by one year... According to historical records, the Death Tree erupts every 40 years, and it was indeed 1983, a full 1943 years away from 40.
So is this all a conspiracy by Eclipse? Was the golem disaster in Blackwood Town not a single one from the beginning, but was it to awaken the Death Tree?
Then, try to use the evil god to control this terrible power?
It couldn't be that Lilith-Glie herself was a seed of destruction.
Thinking of this, Xia Yibing suddenly felt a sudden enlightenment, and felt that many of her thoughts that had been blocked for a long time were now clear.
For example, why did the Bureau and the Cult shrink their forces when there were no signs of this disaster? Why did the Legion of Ashes suddenly and silently surround Elnak?
The higher-ups knew about the disaster.
Since this time last year, when they got clues about the Golem Curse case from themselves and Hitzfeld, they have already confirmed where and when the Death Tree will begin to erupt this time.
This is not easy because the parasitism of the Death Tree after collapse is random.
Xia Yibing didn’t know what the specific situation was, but if she only read the text, it looked more like... a curse that was deeply rooted in the human bloodline.
The entire Sara race is its seed bank.
Each random selection will include the entire territory of Sara, including anyone within the territory.
Therefore, the most difficult part in guarding against the Death Tree every time is not to kill the Seed of Destruction or the object that the Seed of Destruction is parasitic on, but to first determine where this seed is in the entire territory of Sara.
If this cannot be confirmed, all precautions are meaningless. This is equivalent to a bomb that can explode at any time and anywhere.
But why was it postponed for a year?
There is no mention in the archives of the Death Tree that this cycle has been postponed. Can it be said that "the Death Tree outbreak that was supposed to occur in 1983 was postponed to 1984 because of some special case"?
Could that special case be Lilith herself?
Let's make an assumption... suppose Lilith Gulie in 1983 was the only host of the Death Tree. In other outbreak cycles, there were 2-4 such hosts, but she was the only one that time.
Was this a coincidence, or had Eclipse already gotten hold of the secret of the Seeds of Destruction at that time, and had they used some special means to combine what should have been multiple seeds into one?
But in Nanxinze, Aisuen said that those evil followers were also frantically searching for information about the Seed of Destruction. If they had ever mastered or even tampered with the Seed of Destruction, they should not be so ignorant.
Unless Izabella is qualified to know this level of information.
etc--
The time when Izabella ordered Casimir to sneak into the library to investigate the information about the Seed of Destruction was not in 1983, but much earlier. Could it be that the disaster in 1983 was the result of their multi-faceted investigation and acquisition of intelligence?
Is it true that the Eclipse Church is not completely ignorant of the Seed of Destruction as we have speculated? Is it true that the information we previously had was outdated?
When she thought of this possibility, Xia Yibing felt a chilling breath penetrating her soul and spreading along her spine.
It turned out to be like this...
No wonder Villefort has been frequently visiting the palace and the Cathedral recently. He actually kept this secret to himself!
Xia Yibing has absolute trust in Villefort. Since the senior members of the Security Bureau and the royal family have kept a clear head, the current situation... might be within their expectations.
This didn't make her feel much better.
Because this means that their mortality rate has increased, and in a certain ending, even if they truly eradicate the threat of the Seed of Destruction's secondary parasitism, they may not be able to survive the fire of the Legion of Ashes.
This is very possible. If Xia Yibing was the one in power, she would not trust anything the people in the town said.
Just as Hitzfeld had warned her then.
Even if it is reported in this way, it can be regarded as a lie spread by the parasite.
Then the destruction of Ernak was inevitable.
Villefort has... abandoned us.
The image of the fat man saying goodbye to them on the platform flashed through his mind.
